Amazon ended weeks of speculation by confirming its intended purchase of the Sizmek ad server and Dynamic Creative Optimization DCO suite Some believe that this move could disrupt the very top of the digital advertising market The agreed sale price of Sizmeks ad server and DCO assets were not disclosed publicly but separate sources with knowledge of the proceedings stated that Sizmeks assets were in the region of 75 to 100 million and estimated that the final offer was below that figure This deal almost brings to a close Sizmeks Chapter 11 process which also involved the sell-off of its data management and demand-side platform assets to Zeta Global for an estimated 36 million The Amazon transaction has yet to conclude plus the assets of Sizmeks remaining contextual advertising business Peer 39 has yet to attract an offer but given the growth of Amazons ad business in recent years it has sparked much speculation about the companys prospects in an industry ruled by Facebook and Google Challenging the incumbents Facebook and Google Facebook and Google currently dominate the US digital advertising market with a joint market share of 577 as of last year according to eMarketer making the two an effective duopoly However the growing market share of Amazon Advertising which accounted for 41 of all spend in 2018 and is set to hit 71 by 2020 is disrupting the status quo In the opening quarter of the year Amazon Advertising generated 27 billion in revenue for the period and Amazons svp and CFO Brian T Olsavsky explained that the company wants to offer advertisers better insights on how media spend invested with its platform can drive e-commerce sales In particular Amazon wants to make it easier for brands to understand how to use its DSP including how spend can help generate ROI according to Olsavskys comments in a Seeking Alpha transcript Doubtless it was this strategy that has driven its interest in what is the second most commonly adopted buy-side ad server on the market How much of a task lies ahead Amazon has yet to discuss its integration strategy But given that its US market share is still in single figures its worth looking at what it will take to advance this number Some theorize that one of the drivers behind Amazons burgeoning advertising business has been the reallocation of spend from search budgets A dollar away from Google means a dollar elsewhere Why not Amazon Jay Friedman president Goodway Group agreed with this assessment Search has always been the lowest of low-funnel tactics he said And whats better than being able to buy search on the same platform as the product is sold on On whether Sizmeks assets will significantly accelerate Amazon closing the gap on the duopolys market share Friedman was cautious holding that ad serving is a high-marketing but low-dollar-volume business I dont believe it will make Amazons ad business appear to grow significantly he said But thats not what this is about This is about building a fully integrated stack where advertisers dont need to touch anything other than an Amazon product Search on-platform display off-platform display audio and video all in one place Sound familiar Paul Silver COO of MiQ explained that a buy-side ad server gets Amazon into the measurement space in an exciting way It means the company could better provide closed-loop measurement to advertisers that spend money on its DSP This is especially the case since up to 50 of e-commerce transactions happen on its own platform Amazon can provide marketers complete visibility into the 50 that happens brand-side plus now the 50 that happens behind the walls of Amazon said Silver This has to be a really compelling proposition for any marketer Another platform with longtail priorities Ana Milicevic principal and co-founder of Sparrow Advisers told Adweek that another source of growth for Amazon Advertising has been traditional in-store shopping budgets She noted that similar to the duopoly it may be making a play for the ad budgets of SME players not necessarily the media plans of Madison Avenue advertisers